


Penzance

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Good Mary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 02:58:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1672154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Longish. </p><p>Sherlock, Mary, and John have been sent out to, er, make a hit, on a criminal who can't be dealt with through more open methods: Mycroft and company have determined that while law and diplomacy may dictate one answer, honor and decency sometimes dictate another. </p><p>Within the context of the story, questions of OTP and OT3 are addressed. However, don't get your slash-lovin' hopes up. The conclusion leans loving but platonic. This is written with an assumption of a pretty vanilla John--Mary--Sherlock relationship. Slightly more scandalous and direct than the resolution of "Sign of Three," but only one element that might exceed that. Conclusion is definitely Safe For Work, and one scene only is in any way at all in doubt in that respect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Penzance

**Author's Note:**

> Minor costuming links at bottom of story, if you're interested in what they're wearing. Because I Have Committed Costuming In My Day.... XD

They were going to kill a man.

Granted, it was with permission. “License to kill.” They were moving under Mycroft’s command, and he was moving with the knowledge and approval of the Ministry of Defense, and they were moving with the knowledge and approval of the Privy Council, which in turn had made full disclosure to the Queen, the Prime Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition, who had all signed off on it in terms so wary that Sherlock suspected he and John and Mary could commit genocide on a global scale and still hand over the signed papers and make a compelling argument for why their actions had fallen within the limits of the command.

They were going to kill a man.

“Ready for this?” John asked, his voice tight and edgy. He was checking his gear, confirming the status of weapons, Kevlar vest, communications links, medical emergency kit. His voice suggested he thought of himself as the seasoned vet going in with Sherlock-the-Rookie. Somehow John never seemed to fully comprehend his friend had long ago “seen the elephant,” and made his first kill.

But, then, that was one of John’s charms. Far from being despicable, there was something sweet about his eternal faith in the Sherlock Holmes of the Game: the Sherlock who’d been invented to provide cover for a more complicated, deadly person altogether. John loved beautiful, deadly things—but rarely chose to admit even to himself that “deadly” was as much part of the allure as “beautiful.”

“I’m ready,” Sherlock said. “A pity this isn’t a good situation for wearing the coat.”

“Oh, Gawd,” Mary said, chuckling and rolling her eyes. She was dressed in her “work clothes”: the black balaclava, the trim, tight jacket, the dark jeans, the black gloves. The first time Sherlock had seen her in that outfit, she’d shot him. “Seriously, Sherlock, the coat? One gust of wind and you’ll blow off the cliffs. Have you see the weather report for Penzance?”

“That’s what ropes and pitons and belaying clips are for,” Sherlock sniffed. “And I can hide so much in my coat.”

“You’re being a clot on purpose, aren’t you, you berk?” John said with a wolfish grin. He shifted to stand by Mary. He looked as dressed for success as Mary in charcoal-gray chinos and a shawl-necked Aran jumper worn over a light turtle-necked jersey. There was something about his close-cropped ash blond hair and the hungry hunter expression that made him look like some small, deadly little predator—the sort with teeth that could shear bone and an unerring instinct for the kill.

Sherlock ignored John’s question, grinning his own wild-wolf smile, at home with his pack. He set the coat aside, conceding it was unsafe for the project that night…then checked the ropes and clips and pitons in his pack, there as backup if they needed them.

He hoped they wouldn’t need them.

“Check your weapons,” Mary said.

“Already have.”

“Check again,” she growled. “Not taking you out with me if you’re going to act like you’re on holiday.”

“I am on holiday,” Sherlock pointed out with a teasing grin, even as he obeyed. His sweater was long, and hid a substantial array of tools clipped to his belt and stuffed into all his trouser pockets. He wore a handgun in a shoulder holster, tucked under the sweater out of the way. Mary and John had already insisted on checking the safety twice.

When they were ready, they slipped silently out the back door of the rental cottage Mycroft’s people had arranged, cutting across the fields toward the cliffs.

“How long till high tide?”

Sherlock slipped his phone out of his pocket, clicked it on, and announced, “Two hours. Plenty of time.”

“Plenty if nothing goes wrong,” Mary muttered.

“He won’t be coming ashore until high tide. Doesn’t like getting his feet wet,” Sherlock snapped. “We’ve covered this.”

“Yeah, yeah. Could you two quit fussing?” John grumbled. He walked like a little tank, solid and secure. “You should have married each other.”

Mary and Sherlock exchanged grins, always amused by John’s failure to see they weren’t married--they were twinned, which was quite different.

They reached the cliffs as the evening wind picked up, coming in off the sea. John fished in his back pocket and pulled out a balaclava matching Mary’s. He pulled it down over the round dome of his head, covering his ears. They walked to the stairs that led down to the beach below and sat, each claiming a stair of his or her own, far enough down they wouldn’t be silhouetted against the sky line.

“Comes in from the south-east, from the Channel Islands,” John said, squinting at the sea, still silver-bright as afternoon moved toward evening. “High tide comes enough after nightfall for him to dock at the landing above the beach and climb up to the cliff top.”

“If he follows his pattern he’ll be met by a car out on the roadside,” Mary agreed. “By the yellow bungalow with the goats in the field—under the sycamore.”

“Do you think the driver will come looking for him when he doesn’t show up?” John asked.

“Maybe,” Sherlock said. “That’s why when we’re done we’re going down the stairs, taking his dinghy, and sailing around the point to Penzance.”

“And we’re not taking the body.”

“We’re not taking the body,” Sherlock agreed. “Mycroft wants him found.”

Mycroft wanted him found very much—so much that they’d be taking a bit of extra time to make sure the body wasn’t lost if humanly possible. Sherlock had pointed out that there was a chance he’d fall into the ocean and be swept away in the dark waters. Mycroft had conceded there wasn’t much they could do if that happened. But if they could they were to leave the body to send a message.

“What does Mycroft want done with the thumb drive if we lose him?” John asked for the fifth time.

“You remember,” Mary said. “Put it in the zip-lock with his name on it, and stick it to the dock with a push-pin or two. It would be better if they found him with the files—no chance of his people missing the point. But it will do if it has to.”

All three had a copy of the thumb drive with the photos of the kidnapped children. Twenty-three of them, between the ages of seven and thirteen—all chosen to satisfy foreign tastes.

Only two had been recovered—Tim Westerly from a brothel in Marseilles: his fifth since his first “owner” had tired of him and given him to a local gangster from one of the families of the _Unione Corse._ The second had been found in Marrakesh, “married” to a man old enough to be her grandfather, and kept locked in purdah, guarded by senior wives.

It was, Sherlock thought, a tricky diplomatic situation. Relations with Turkey were too important to risk damaging, especially as The Jackal wasn’t one of their own—merely a criminal they couldn’t afford to destroy themselves. The bastard was protected by layer after layer of blackmail, favors owed, investments shared with very bad men and women. But the Turks had been coerced into providing him with diplomatic immunity, declaring him an ambassador without portfolio and turning a blind eye to his predation.

Mycroft didn’t want to offend the Turks, and official action would be offensive.

Mycroft—and his superiors—were not willing to follow the Turks’ lead, though and treat The Jackal’s gleeful kidnap of English children as the “cost of doing business” in Eastern Europe and the Middle-East. Some games had to be ended.

“Time for me to go,” John said. “If I wait much longer I won’t have enough light to risk the scramble across the cliff.”

“Take care, sweetheart,” Mary said, giving him a wifely kiss—and following it with a pat on his tightly clad bum as he climbed over the pipe-rail bannister out onto the slim trail leading to John’s station. “You’ve got your gear, yeah?”

He harrumphed, over both the pat on the tush and the fuss. “Yes, I have my gear, Mary. I’m not going hunting without my rifle, now am I?” Then he turned and smiled, and reached over the rail, pulling her close for a kiss before he loped down the thin trial to the beaten-down nook hidden behind boulders—a spot that, judging by the litter of discarded condoms tossed into the nearby gorse and heather, was a favored lover’s hide-away.

“He’ll have a good line across the stair,” Mary said. She’d said it before, but Sherlock could see she was reviewing all elements of the plan again, determined to protect her husband and her friend if Mycroft was going to insist on them working as a team. “If we can’t take him from the cliff-top for any reason, he’ll have a clean shot anywhere on the stair. The one bad bit is the last two yards down to the landing, and down into his dinghy.”

“It will be all right,” Sherlock said. “Mycroft’s had three other agents through here over the past month, to make sure our own evaluation’s been checked.”

Mary nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Probably time for us to go back up to the cliff top, then, and hunker down.”

They climbed up, and took positions on either side of the stair, lying belly down, hidden in the heather. From below they should be invisible—indeed, the shrubs and coarse weeds provided sufficient cover from the path out to the road that Sherlock believed they’d go unseen even if enemies walked right past them. The angle of their placement, though, allowed each to see the other, a mere couple yards away, hidden in the tangle of brushwood.

Still, they were silent.

The wind whistled in off the ocean, making the night feel colder than it actually was. Sherlock was grateful for the heavy sweater. He slipped gloved fingers up to the rolled collar, and unrolled it, easing it up over his chin and ears—then, after consideration, rolled it even higher, covering the tip of his nose. His fringe fluttered, tips threatening to tangle in his lashes, and he sighed.

“I should have gotten a haircut,” he said. “Can’t keep my fringe out of my eyes.”

“Got a hair grip, if you like.”

“One of little Em’s?”

“Yeah.”

“The pink plastic with the rose buds?”

“Yeah.”

“Pass, thanks.”

Mary chortled. “But you’d look so sweet, Sherlock.”

He glowered—but it wasn’t a glower with any heat in it. He and Mary had long since found a balance, teasing each other, pretending affront, and all the while as close in their way as either was with John.

No, Sherlock thought, in a way they were closer. He and Mary both probably loved John more—but they understood each other more completely. Mary called it “kindred spirits,” claiming to have picked up the phrase from a children’s book as a girl. The sentiment made him uneasy, but in truth there was no one in the world who approached matching Sherlock as closely but Mycroft, and since getting to know Mycroft Sherlock had even begun to understand how profoundly he and his brother were mysteries to each other.

Sherlock was not used to making sense to people. When he did make sense to them, they seldom looked at him with the fond, tolerant, amused look Mary so often wore.

Mary pulled out her mobile phone, and tapped the keys, grinning when an answer quickly came back. “He’s fine. Says the tide’s almost half way up the pilings.”

“Ask him if he can see a sail, yet?”

“Can’t,” she said, soon. “He’s got the rifle set up.”

“Good. You?”

“Yes. Handgun ready?”

“Wasn’t planning on drawing it until he arrives,” Sherlock said.

Mary grunted a soft acknowledgement, then fell silent.

Sherlock studied the horizon. His hair continued to bother him. “Toss me that hair grip after all.”

She fished in her pocket then drew her hand out. “Ready? I’m going to toss it.”

He hitched forward to leave his arms free, hanging over the lip of the cliff. She tossed, and he caught the little pink grip in cupped palms. He swept his fringe back, gathered it, and clipped it tight.

Mary sniggered. “You’re almost as cute as Em.”

They settled down.

“How long till he’s likely to get here?”

“Hour. Maybe longer. He has to balance high tide with sundown.” Mary stirred, restlessly, then said, uncertainly, “Your brother is worried John and I are sleeping with you.”

Sherlock blinked. “That’s really not what I expected you to say next.” He frowned, brow creasing as he stared out over the purpling waters. “Does John know?”

“Yeah."

“Oh.” He felt his brains freeze, and blinked into the wind, all rational thought brought to a temporary halt. After a while, he said, uncertainly, “He used to think we were…something…before, too. I mean, before-before.” He swallowed. “Before I left. Before you.”

“Well, d’oh,” Mary said, smiling. She crossed her arms under her chin and closed her eyes, as relaxed as though she were lying on a lounger by a pool somewhere in Portugal, rather than flat on the dirt in the middle of the heather and the gorse with a sniper rifle assembled and ready for use not six inches from her elbow. “Let’s be honest, sweetie, most people love each other that much are either kids doing the BFF thing or they’re grown up and shagging each other.”

“Did you think….?”

She squiggled and turned her head, face turned sidewise. “Thought about it. Decided it didn’t match up with the facts. But, then, I _was_ sleeping with him. Had a bit of an inside track on things.”

Sherlock snorted, then, and intoned, “He’s _not gay!”_

“Well, he’s not,” she said, amiably. “At least, not enough that he’d be likely to be in bed with you without it starting out like Mycroft’s thinking. Maybe if we played ‘three in the bed and the little one said,’ I’d roll over and you two would just keep on. But, John? You know John. There would have to be tits in the bed at least to start with.” She yawned, then said, “Do you wish Mycroft had been right?”

Sherlock’s head shot up, until he looked a bit like the Sphynx, resting on his elbows and frowning like a lion. “But John’s _not gay.”_

“Is that ‘Sherlock-ese’ for ‘Hell, no! And I’m not gay, either!’?”

He frowned across the open space between them. “Is that ‘Mary-ese’ for ‘I wish you were, just a bit?’”

She hummed, a considering noise. “Nooooo. Not…not exactly. I’d sooner with you than anyone else I’ve ever met. But it does seem a bit like me and my evil male twin confusing the hell out of poor John.”

“We look nothing alike,” Sherlock said. “We’d never pass as twins.”

“Non-identical twins,” she pointed out. “We could be non-identical twins.”

“No,” he said, firmly. “I assure you, John wouldn’t be confused by that.”

“He’d be confused by us jumping him together. We’d be coloring outside the lines.”

Sherlock hummed his own agreement. “Yes. I don’t think John would like it.”

“No. Me neither.”

“Do you wish…Mycroft to be right?” he asked, uncertainly.

She opened her eyes, then, and looked across the open curve of air between them. “I don’t think so,” she said, finally. “It sounds complicated. What we’ve got is complicated enough. I love you to pieces and you’re drop-dead gorgeous and John adores you and so do I. But it sounds like such a lot of work.” She grinned. “More fun going ‘hunting’ with you, to tell the truth.”

He grinned, then, an evil grin, and nodded. “Yep. It never occurred to me John would bring me someone else to play with.”

“See—surprises around every corner,” she said, amiably, and squiggled in place. “How long till he’s likely to get here?”

“Forty-five minutes or more.”

“I’m going to sleep for a half-hour, I think. Wake me when it starts getting dark.”

Then she fell silent, dropping into sleep without a second thought.

He liked her…not least because it was often that simple with her. They would have conversations he’d long since discovered other people would not or could not have with him—personal things. Intimate things. Things other people considered shocking or distressing. She and he had spoken with what even John, the doctor, had considered brutal honesty about the possible complications of her late-life pregnancy, for example. And unbeknownst to John, Sherlock had been able to talk to Mary about Janine…and about all the terrifying ramifications of actually discovering his own body’s capacity for desire. He could talk to her and somehow things never got complicated or distressing…not even the way things got with John. As though Mary simply didn’t have the same expectations in life, or recognize the same things as both “normal” and “righteous.”

He thought about what they’d said.

Did he regret that he and John had never…

He frowned, trying to work it through. It was so difficult for him. What he felt never seemed to conform to what people seemed to think was normal or natural…in the eternal game of “one of these things is not like the others,” Sherlock was always the one left holding the unmatched item.

To regret not attempting sex with John, he would have to think he and John had wanted sex. That seemed both logical and right. John had always vociferously indicated that he was “not gay,” and that he did not want sex with any man—with Sherlock clearly and cheerfully classified with all other men in that respect. To want sex with John would mean to want sex with John in spite of John not wanting sex with Sherlock, which was unsettling to say the least. And even if John _had_ wanted sex with Sherlock…Sherlock could not remember wanting sex with John. At least, he didn’t think he wanted sex with John.

He was already shaken enough discovering he yearned for John—needed him. That John’s existence made him come alive. That there was someone besides Mycroft who brought the color out in the day, and sent the rush of adrenaline racing around his body…all the pleasure of having a person to share with, and none of the actual aching, infuriating pain of never being able to keep up or match strides. With John, Sherlock was always the smart one, always the one in the know, always the star. And with John there was always someone half-giddy with the chase, loving it where Mycroft had hated their days of fieldwork together, loving only that the work was done with Sherlock…not the work itself.

John loved the work, and loved doing it with his friend.

It was like…

It was like…

Sherlock couldn’t say what it was like.

Yes, actually, he could. Not that anyone would understand in the least. It was like the day he’d discovered the concept of a chemical catalyst, and realized that one otherwise innocuous substance could completely change the chemical parameters of a formula—as close to magic as anything he had ever discovered, before or since. Life without John had been inert. Life with him was an active compound.

Every time he tried to tell anyone that, it seemed they expected he would also want to go to bed with John. Well, except Mary, maybe, who appeared to accept. Apparently all the delight he felt was supposed to indicate he would also _desire_ John.

He’d contemplated it on occasion, before the Fall. He knew what was involved. He’d tried thinking about it. He usually lost track of his attempt at a fantasy half-way through, though, drifting into more exciting, thrilling fantasies of racing after criminals and arguing over the state of the kitchen and watching Manchester United versus Arsenal.

Sherlock was almost certain that if you wanted to have sex with a person, attempts to fantasize about it were not always supposed to collapse into memories of having solved a case together the previous day, or possible pranks one could play on one’s object of desire.

In the days before the Fall he’d simply assumed it was one more of those things ordinary people were strange about. It had been all Sherlock could manage to finally concede that John was his _friend._ The idea of John as his lover had just seemed irrelevant.

On returning he’d been forced to ask himself again.

He’d never known an ache like discovering John gone from Baker Street—much less the ache of John’s anger, or of his love for Mary. He still didn’t know a pain like it. Remembering could leave him breathless. Realizing that John was still his friend—that John and Mary had chosen to keep him, to work to maintain their connection with him?

There were so few things Sherlock felt a true weight of gratitude for…felt as a heavy but welcome burden keeping him steady, like ballast in the belly of a cargo ship, keeping Sherlock even on his keel. Mycroft—Mycroft’s love was like that, though more complex and less easy to endure. Sherlock felt more conflict about Mycroft. John and Mary were all the joys of Mycroft and none of the agonizing need to do battle, ripping out at the object of his gratitude with tooth and claw.

He’d missed John. He’d been terrified of losing John. He’d _needed_ John—and he’d struggled over Mary, caught between stunned delight that he so enjoyed her, and bitter envy that John was so completely hers, now. It was joy and grief to see John’s face when Mary walked into a room, and the sun rose with her presence.

Of course he’d asked again if it was “love.” Romance. Passion.

He’d studied John’s arse, considering with a frown that it was well-shaped, appropriately packaged….and that he wasn’t quite sure what he’d do with it even if he did have access. He’d watched old favorite porn movies and made himself focus on the male characters and their bodies, on the occasional m/f/m threesomes…

And had got nowhere. Or worse, occasionally got just far enough to imagine John beginning to whinge at Sherlock for being bollocks at sex, just like he whinged at Sherlock for being thoughtless, or messy, or tactless… Or he imagined when he and John would begin to giggle. He sidetracked into contemplating experiments on the speed and progress of erections.  He tried to imagine John climaxing in his bed, in his arms—and mainly felt a bit prurient and peculiar.

He’d ached to look at John’s empty chair the morning of the wedding. Ached for weeks afterward. But it was always for the loss of John, there in all his sulky, illogical, stodgy, danger-loving contrary companionship. Not for his body.

Sherlock sighed, and stared out across the ocean. It was almost dark—not yet dark, but getting close. He squinted his eyes, looking for the sign of the triangle sails of The Jackal’s dinghy. So far no sight of him. He sighed again.

“Are you all right, Sherlock?” Mary stretched and blinked at him, her face beginning to blur and soften in the dusk.

“Fine. Contemplating the fact that I had much better luck actually proceeding with Janine than I had even contemplating sex with John. Perhaps because I’m more familiar with heterosexual pornography? I didn’t know what to imagine?”

She chortled. “Oh, Sherlock,” she said, fondly. “Don’t worry about it. You love him. He loves you. So far there’s no sign either of you want to shag each other. So, great. You’re in agreement. And if you ever change your mind—deal with it then.”

“But I am apparently not supposed to love him so much without wanting…that.”

“Bollocks,” she said. “Just—bollocks. Don’t worry about it.”

He nodded, reluctantly.

“You’re cute with Em’s hair clip.”

“I probably look quite idiotic,” he said, not minding at all. He squinted. “I think I may see something moving out there at about eleven o’clock, close to the horizon-line.”

Mary fished for her folding binoculars. “Yep. I think that’s him, Sherlock. Text John and Mycroft. We’re in business.”

He could hear the tigerish grin in her voice, almost sense the rush of excitement. He fished out his mobile, and texted, “John—incoming, eleven o’clock. Game’s on.”

In seconds John texted back, “Spotted him. Confirm it’s the _Langue D’oil,_ heading straight into the bay.”

“Will tell Mary and Mycroft. Ready, John?”

“More than ready.”

John didn’t like The Jackal. Sherlock didn’t either. Like John, he found he could not look at the images of the stolen children without imagining little Em, fair-haired and blue-eyed and pale, so very much the image of what The Jackal liked to steal and sell into bondage.

Caring might not be an advantage—but Sherlock was beginning to realize that, properly managed, it was a powerful motivator.

He had been trying to formulate a new principle to replace Mycroft’s old, saw, always more honored in the breach in any case—“Caring is not an advantage.” Even Mycroft had never succeeded in setting aside his heart. Sherlock’s new proverb was, “Plan with your head—then act with your heart.” It seemed to work, applying detachment and passion where each would do the most good.

He texted Mycroft. “Target approaching. Expect contact within twenty minutes. Boat positively IDed a the _Langue D’Oil.”_

Mycroft texted back, “Noted. Good hunting, brother-mine.”

Sherlock grinned.

He could almost swear he felt Mary and John’s hearts, beating with his. He knew John was doing a final check on the sniper rifle and the stabilizing tripod. Mary was similarly checking her weapon. Sherlock, whose Glock was the last line of resistance if The Jackal did the impossible and made it past their attack, touched the shoulder holster, feeling it through the thick wool of his sweater. Drew it. Felt the diamond-etched texture of the butt of the weapon, rough so a shooter wouldn’t lose his or her grip. He checked the magazine, then shoved it firmly back in place. The wind from the sea swept over his face, stroked his skin.

He half-wished that it was low-tide. That The Jackal would pull the boat ashore, furl the sails, toss out an anchor, start the long hike up the beach to the stairs leading to the landing. That he and Mary and John would be poised in hiding at beach level. That there would be a confrontation. That The Jackal would bolt, and Sherlock and his two best friends would take after him, Sherlock at the fore, long legs eating the yards, feet pounding on sand packed hard by water and surf, not yet loose and dry. John would trail behind, shorter of leg, and behind him, Mary, both gasping as they tried to keep up with Sherlock’s deer-hound gallop. That he’d tackle The Jackal. That they’d fall, a tangle of limbs, fighting before they even hit ground. That weapons would flash. That John would swear, trying to get a clear shot. That Mary, silent, would draw, wait—kill. That they would all stay, exactly as they were when her shot was fired, eyes burning in starlight.

It wouldn’t happen that way, Sherlock thought, facing into the wind. But it should.

Oh, God, it should!

His blood pounded with the anticipation of the race that would not be run, the fight that would never be joined—the three-in-one moment of climax that would never be achieved.

He’d discovered sex in the past years. He’d finally learned about both body and heart what he’d always assumed was alien to him. And, yet…

As sweet as sex was…

As much as he’d loved the moment of watching Janine arch and whine in his arms, panting into his neck…

As shattered as he’d been when his own body shattered with the lightning and thunder of explosive completion…

Oh, God, to run the sand with John and Mary close behind; to fight under moonlight and hear their shouts in his ears; to hear the crack of Mary’s handgun, to feel the action come to a bone-rattling conclusion…to gaze into the eyes of his loves….

What the hell was sex to that?

He could hear the smack of the waves against the pilings supporting the pier landing. As the _Langue D’Oil_ approached he could hear the water pound against her sides, the crack of the sails as the wind gasped and panted, the moan of the timber as the boat approached the shore. There was a bump Sherlock could feel through the earth he lay on—the thud of the boat banging against the pilings, the shiver of the long chain of stairs from landing to landing, each carrying a trace of the blow, until it shivered under Sherlock’s palms.

There were several different ways this could go. It wasn’t like the Fall, though; it wasn’t thirteen likely scenarios. Just three main ones. Mary would get the first clear shot; John would… or both would somehow fail, and Sherlock waiting with his Glock, would wait until The Jackal’s head rose up to eye level with him as he lay there hidden in the heather and the gorse, and he would aim the gun between The Jackal’s eyes, and shoot.

Or, it turned out, there was one more possibility.

Sherlock heard the footsteps lumbering up the long stairways, stopping at each landing. The Jackal panted at each one, catching his breath. Sherlock knew from surveillance footage that the man was past middle-aged and soft in the belly. He smoked. He drank. Mycroft’s agents believed him to be suffering from tuberculosis contracted in a Uzbekistani prison years before. They hadn’t taken that into account—the weakness, the illness. The man clung to the wall of the cliff-side, clutching tight to the pipe rail on the inner face of the stair rather than the outer face. Sherlock hadn’t realized how difficult it was to get a clear shot when the man failed to give them that crucial extra foot of visibility from their cliff-side blinds.

There were no sounds but the sounds of sea and bay and cliff and air…and The Jackal climbing the stair, one step at a time, panting. Mary and John and Sherlock were silent. Sherlock set his jaw, expecting now to be the only one to get a clear shot before the man reached the top of the stair.

Only when The Jackal’s head came into view, his dark hair fluttering like black weeds in the wind, did John’s rifle crack. The Jackal screamed, then, and Sherlock heard his feet scrabble on the stairs. For a moment Sherlock thought John had made a clean kill; then he heard The Jackal fall, heavily, and the sound of creeping as he dragged himself up against the cliff face, once more out of sight.

Mary was still silent, though he could see her face crumple in anger and frustration. Still, she kept her peace, unwilling to give her own presence away. The Jackal knew John was there. He didn’t know Mary and Sherlock were, too, though—and Mary wasn’t about to tell him. She caught his eye, and gestured that he should creep under cover down the line of the cliff, working his way through the brush to where the cliff arched out toward the sea, in hopes of getting a better view. He nodded, then worked his way around, seeing Mary texting frantically out of the corner of his eye as he turned away. She’d be texting John and Mycroft, updating them on the situation, on Sherlock’s progress, working with them to compensate for this mess.

He reached the point, and looked back. He could just make out The Jackal, huddled in the lee of an outcrop. He slipped the phone from his pocket, texting Mary. “Can see him. Bad position for a shot. May have a chance if he attempts to climb up. None if he heads back down for the dinghy.”

Mary gave him a thumbs-up and bowed over her phone. Sherlock settled, watching for movement in the now-dense darkness.

John stayed still, unmoving in his hiding place.

Five minutes. Ten. There—movement. The Jackal rose, but kept well to the wall. Sherlock frowned. He had, perhaps, the best line of sight of any of them…but it wasn’t saying much. The arch of the wall, the stone outcrops that shouldered out against the stairway…all interfered, as did the darkness. Still, he had a chance. He texted Mary to let her know The Jackal was coming up the stair, then took a classic position, belly down, chest and upper arms supporting his weight, Glock held in one hand with his other bracing his wrist. He watched as a flick of motion here, and then there, gave away the man’s progress up the stairs.

If the man had only been fit, he thought. Or not afraid of heights. If he’d moved up the stairs in the pattern that seemed natural, not clutching the stony face of the cliff, cutting off the view.

Sherlock licked his lips. He could see Mary setting herself up. She’d moved her rifle out of the way, and reverted to her own hand weapon. Like Sherlock, she stayed on her belly, eyes looking for a head to rise up above the lip of the cliff.

The man hesitated. Sherlock could see his head duck down—up. The Jackal was giving one last thought to the advantages of the dinghy over the car waiting out by the sycamore and the yellow house at the end of the lane.

Sherlock prayed he’d keep moving up. Then he swore, softly, as The Jackal seemed to turn.

A shot rang out, ending in the splat of a bullet hitting stone. The shot seemed to have come from below, far down the cliff. Sherlock frowned, but he didn’t have time to do more than deduce the obvious—that John, in spite of his old scars, had risked working his way down the cliff-face the hard way, groping blind in the dark, finding cracks to cling to and crevices to jam the toes of his shoes as he sought low ground.

The Jackal, though, was rushing to ascend. Sherlock squinted, and added to John’s accomplishment, aiming below the dark flashes of movement, across the line of the stairs in sight, warning The Jackal that the route back down to the sea was unsafe.

Only at the last did Sherlock see the man rise up, clinging to the rail, as he topped the final stairway….

Mary met his eyes as he crested the lip of the cliff, and shot. The Jackal fell, the only sound the heavy thud of his body on the landing below.

In the flurry of texting that followed it was established that the Jackal was dead, the thumb drive planted on his body—and that John was stuck on the lower face of the cliff, injured.

“Stupid,” he texted Sherlock. “No good at rock climbing even in daylight with ropes. Slipped and gashed my calf. I’ve got it bound, but I’m going into shock, and I need some way down from here.”

Sherlock leaned against the rail of the lowest landing of the stair. “I think I can see him,” he said to Mary. He waved broadly. The dark, shadowy form waved back. “If I can reach him, I can rig a rope harness,” he said. “You can sail the dinghy around to a point under John’s location. I’ll lower him, then rappel down myself.”

She nodded. “I think we can work with that. Are you sure you don’t want me to be the one to work my way out to him? I’m smaller and my feet are going to fit little toe-holds better.”

“I’m used to climbing buildings at night,” Sherlock grumbled. “I think I can manage a cliff. And once I’m there it’s better that I’m bigger. Makes it safer to lower him down.”

“There is that,” she said. “Okay. Your way.” They grinned at each other, and said in unison, “Always your way,” echoing poor John’s fury and  frustration so many months before. The phrase had become a catch phrase between the three, but most of all between Mary and Sherlock. Poor John…

Sherlock triple-checked the ropes, the pitons, the clips and mallet. Then he eased himself cautiously over the rail and inched his way out on the edge of the soft chalk cliff. He quickly concluded he was better off cracking out hand-holds than attempting to secure pitons in the chalk. It was a hard passage, and as he went he tried to work out how he’d anchor the line to lower John down. He was just settling in his mind on multiple pitons to distribute the weight widely, when he reached John’s perch.

“Took you long enough,” John said, with a scowl more pretend than real. He shifted to make room for Sherlock, then gave a sharp gasp. “Sorry-sorry. Hurts.”

Sherlock hunkered down, squinting. “Can’t see a thing,” he grumbled. “Too dark, and your pants are black.”

“Got it bound up,” John said. “But I’m cold. Got another survival blanket? Mine blew away.”

“Nope,” Sherlock said. “Can you hold out till I’ve got the rope harness rigged?”

John huffed. “Like I’ve got a choice?”

“There is that,” Sherlock chuffed, amused, then set to the task of preparing the harness. Only when he was done did he slip down beside John and pull his friend to lean against him, John’s back to Sherlock’s chest. He fished in his pocket and pulled out the phone.

“Looks like you’re going to be here a little longer,” he said. “Your wife indicates she sails somewhat less well than she would like. She has to row.”

“Ah,” said John. He leaned more heavily. “Yeah. Well. She’ll get here eventually,” he said, loyally. “She’s good that way.”

“Mmmm,” Sherlock agreed, and let a long arm loop around John’s chest. “She told me what Mycroft thinks,” he said, voice conversational.

John twitched. “Now? You want to talk about this now?”

“Why not?” Sherlock said. “We’ve little better to do, now. Our mission is complete, and all that remains is to escape and have your wounds tended too—and that is dependent on Mary.”

“Yeah, well,” John said, growling a bit. “Why the hell did _she_ bring it up?”

“Because it worries her less than it does you?”

“I’m not worried.”

“Uncomfortable, then,” Sherlock said, feeling gracious in altering his phrasing. Perhaps someday he’d learn enough tact that Mycroft would stop wincing every time he opened his mouth?

Apparently not, going by John’s flinch. “Uncomfortable. Yeah. I…think that’s probably right. I mean, yeah, all right, it’s all good. But, yeah. I’d be uncomfortable. You. Me. Mary. It’s not—there are limits, yeah?”

“Of course, if you say there are,” Sherlock said, feeling this was merely stating the obvious…and John so often liked him to say the obvious.

“ _No,_ ” John huffed, “Not just because I say so. There _are_ limits.” He hunched, sulking as best a man can manage who’s injured, trapped on a cliff, and leaning against his best friend to avoid hypothermia. Only when Sherlock had been silent for some minutes did he say, uneasily, “Hey. You’re not—I mean. You never wanted… I never thought you wanted…” Sherlock could feel him stir, restlessly. “I…haven’t hurt you…have I?”

Sherlock frowned, considering the question. “I don’t believe so. I have wondered, on occasion—but, then, wondering is rather what I do.”

John gave a sudden bark of laughter, and shook his head in fond dismay. “That you do, Sherlock. That you do. You deduce, you show off—and you wonder.” After a moment he went on, “So. What did you wonder?”

Sherlock thought the question through—once. Again. A third time. So many ways to answer the question. “I have learned I do not understand love,” he finally said, warily. “It does not behave as I thought. I did not expect that Janine would…matter…and yet she did. I didn’t think desire would change me. Yet it did.”

“Does that, yeah,” John said. Sherlock was sure he heard a smile in his voice—the amused sound John got when he seemed to see Sherlock almost as Mycroft saw Sherlock, as a beloved younger brother.

“I didn’t know what I would feel about Janine until I tried. It has occurred to me to wonder…if I would feel differently than I once assumed if we were ever to have attempted what Mycroft has occasionally implied.” Sherlock shrugged, and added, voice petulant, “It’s apparently not a matter subject to simple deductive reasoning.”

John was silent for a long time.

Sherlock listened. He could hear Mary fighting with the oars of the dinghy. It was obviously heavy going for her—the boat too wide and heavy for her to easily row, her own body too small and light for the task.  She wouldn’t reach them for a good fifteen to twenty minutes, judging by her swearing.

John appeared to reach the same conclusion. He cleared his throat, twisted slightly against Sherlock, and said, “Look at me, okay?”

Sherlock turned his head to find John frowning up into his face, eyes meeting Sherlock’s eyes. Then John gave a startled laugh.

"What have you got in your hair?"

Sherlock flushed. "Hair grip. Mary lent it to me." He reached up, but before he could remove it John had, fingers tidying it away quickly and efficiently.

“You two. You're going to be the death of me. Look, Sherlock..." John's face furrowed in fretful concern. "Look--me, I didn’t wonder. But I’m me, Sherlock. Wondering isn’t what I do—and maybe that’s kind of dumb. So—just stay still. Ok?” His hand slipped up, curled around the back of Sherlock’s neck, and then he reached up and touched his lips to Sherlock’s.

Sherlock stayed still, unmoving. “You are sure?”

“Count it as an experiment, you prat.”

Sherlock nodded, and slipped his own free hand to cup the back of John’s skull. Their lips brushed, tested, their tongues tickled, mouths opened.

A few moments later they parted.

“Janine’s taught you reasonably well,” John said, conversationally.

“And Mary appears to at least have a competent partner,” Sherlock said, returning the complement.

“It wasn’t…bad.”

“No.”

“Um—so… Was the experiment a success?”

Sherlock frowned. “It was—peculiar.”

It caught John off-guard. He gave a shout of laughter, choked it back down, then gasped, “Thanks! I can see I’m not making ‘ponce of the year’ in your books!”

“Of course not, John,” Sherlock said, absently, “you’re not gay.”

“Then what was that about?” John asked. “What we just did?”

“As you said—an experiment. I could be gay. You could be bi. We could both be wrong.” Sherlock sighed, then, and said, “As it happens, I’m either not gay—or we did it wrong.”

“Or you’re just not that into me,” John chuckled.

“No. If I were going to be into any man, I think it would be you,” Sherlock said. “You are my best friend, and I’m quite disturbingly sentimental about you. And I can say with some conviction that holding you like this is pleasant and even gratifying.” Then he huffed. “It’s just not…” He struggled for words.

“It’s just not making you hot and bothered?” John was grinning from one side of his face to the other, smile and white teeth glinting in starlight and moonshine.

“No,” Sherlock conceded. “Perhaps it’s just the circumstances?”

“Or you love me to bits—but you’re not gay. Or not gay for me,” John pointed out.

“I believe you’re relieved,” Sherlock said, sounding put out.

“Well—I always said I’m not gay.”

Sherlock found that part of him was more than a bit peeved. After all, a bit of doubt on John’s part only seemed fair. But—his friend lay warm against him. His love for John rose up and filled him. He probed his own response, looking for something more. Something beyond the boundless love he already felt.

Maybe. Perhaps. Under other circumstances. And, yet…

How could anyone want more? Need more?

He was John Watson’s best friend. John was his.

Why would he ever want more, when what they had was perfect just as it was?

When Mary arrived he lowered John carefully down to the boat bobbing on the waves, then rappelled down after. Mary and John settled themselves in the body of the boat; Sherlock unfurled the sails and brought the boat around, heading the _Langue D’Oil_ northeast up the coast toward Penzance, and settled in the stern, one hand to the tiller, the other holding the lines. Mary drew John back, until she and her husband both leaned against Sherlock’s shins, cuddled together in the cool of the night.

“Text Mycroft and let him know we should be reaching Penzance by midnight,” Sherlock said. “Suggest he use the GPS to locate us and pick us up.”

“Sure thing,” she said.

“Well. We got the job done,” John said, sounding sleepy.

“Bit of a thrill along the way, but yeah,” Mary agreed. She snuggled tight, leaning back into Sherlock’s legs, pulling John close against her. She slipped one arm around the back of Sherlock’s calves. “It’s like plane landings. Any hit you walk away from is a good hit.”

“Watson, Watson, and Holmes: Making the World Safe for Baby Em since 2014.”

“Holmes, Watson, and Watson,” Sherlock corrected. “I _am_ the first consulting detective, after all.”

“That you are, Sherlock,” John mumbled, dropping lightly into sleep, warm and protected by the people he loved. “That you are.”

Sherlock smiled, then—and for the rest of the trip he proved he knew and could sing all the songs from “The Pirates of Penzance,” including “Paradox,” “A Pirate King,” – and a tender and lilting version of “Poor Wandering One…”

John’s last memory before he slid firmly into sleep was Sherlock’s crushed velvet baritone singing as Mary sang along, a full octave above.

Poor Wandering One

If such poor love as mine

Can help you find true peace of mind…

Take it, it is thine.

 

 

 

Costuming details:

 

John’s soot-grey Aran sweater:   [http://www.ebay.com/itm/Falcarragh-Ireland-LARGE-Charcoal-Gray-Shawl-Collar-Fisherman-Sweater-Aran-Irish-/231060893874?nma=true&si=xZci3HZlowM%252FVc2k%252F1At7lrwyPE%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Falcarragh-Ireland-LARGE-Charcoal-Gray-Shawl-Collar-Fisherman-Sweater-Aran-Irish-/231060893874?nma=true&si=xZci3HZlowM%252FVc2k%252F1At7lrwyPE%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557)

Mary’s work clothes have been seen before, but here they are again: [http://television.thedigitalfix.com/protectedimage.php?image=JoshWilliams/vlcsnap-2014-01-13-17h01m28s113.png_13012014&width=400](http://television.thedigitalfix.com/protectedimage.php?image=JoshWilliams/vlcsnap-2014-01-13-17h01m28s113.png_13012014&width=400)

Sherlock’s work outfit—Blue Turtleneck with black jeans, check all frames: http://www.lyst.com/clothing/yves-saint-laurent-blue-wool-and-angora-blend-turtleneck-sweater/ 


End file.
